Desolation
Spacecake
Sometimes this is how it works: The bus in which you’re riding comes to a halt at a stop light. You casually turn your head to look out the window. And what you see is a tree. A sapling, really. In a patch of greenery. Beside a lamppost. In the middle of the city.
And you realize it’s a visual metaphor. The lamppost and the tree. It speaks to the inherent contradiction between the natural and the manufactured. It speaks to the relationship between the curved line and the straight. It speaks to the ability to grow versus the inevitability of rust. It speaks to renewing resources as opposed to using resources. It speaks, it speaks, it speaks.
So you grab your camera, quickly frame the shot, snap the shutter, and the bus pulls away. If you had the time, you might have taken a “better” photograph with a more traditional balance, a more carefully straight horizon line. And it would have lacked the compelling spontaneity and immediacy of this image. It would have lacked the life. It would have been the lamppost, not the tree.
Sometimes you can only see what’s important when you’re aware that the bus is ready to pull away.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
